Intel have finally confirmed that they will be including water cooling as an enthusiast solution for their upcoming Core i7-3000 series Sandy Bridge-E processors due for release on November 14 – a first for Intel and something for AMD to match. They have gone with Asetek due to their high quality products and good reputation, which will be branded with the distinctive Intel blue logos. The 12cm radiator fan will actually be illuminated in Intel Blue, giving a classy look to the kit. On top of that, they will actually sell the kit separately, so no one need feel left out. The E-series chips are already significantly faster than the current Sandy Bridge offerings, but water cooling will be able to stretch that lead even further and should make for some exciting overclocking achievements. Perhaps 6GHz or more 24/7 reliable operation is within reach? No prices as yet.

I'm confused what this is. Is it a press release? We already saw this and I got to make my disgruntled remarks about it. And significantly faster than available SB procs? Not according to the previews. It's wishful thinking to expect it to go from identical IPC to radical improvement between now and launch.

when there was news about AMD thinking of the possibilty of shipping high-end FX with watercooling , every AMD haters were ready with comments like : fx must be overheating ahahah, fx this , fx that ....

when there was news about AMD thinking of the possibilty of shipping high-end FX with watercooling , every AMD haters were ready with comments like : fx must be overheating ahahah, fx this , fx that ....

Well, I like how it looks. Especially that fan. I don't think I'll be switching over though. When I bought my Gygabyte x58 UD7 I said to myself that the next board I'll buy must have native USB3 and SATA 6GB. Although there's nothing wrong with the implementation that this board has but when it will be integrated it can only get better. So yeah, I think I'll wait for the next generation.

Current Intel MoBo design BLATANTLY depends on the outward radiation of air from the generic circular cooler to blow on all of the surrounding ships (Edit : and even CHIPS ) such as the voltage regulation chain.

With this as spec there will be, by design, NO airflow around your CPU socket.

Yeah "..blah blah overclockers will have extra fans blah blah idiotrant.." - but if this is a STOCK cooler, a lot of NOT OVERCLOCKERS will also land up with it? Sooooo what happens to the thermal load on your VRM's? I'm just say'n....

Considering they support chips "up to 100w TDP" then they will be woefully inadequate for anything overclocked. And, if the stock cooler is insufficient for non-overclocked cpus then Intel is being giant jackasses.

I'm actually getting tired of Intel's crap. You would have thought all SB-E would be unlocked. Nope, sorry. Even $500 for a CPU and mobo doesn't earn you that right with Intel. Intel is always trying to jam us for a couple extra bucks even when we're hemorrhaging money for their chipset and SB-E cpus.

As much as performance is king, I can't help but really appreciate AMD.